If this is your first visit, be sure to
check out the FAQ by clicking the
link above. You will have to register
before you can post: click the register link above to proceed. To start viewing messages,
select the forum that you want to visit from the selection below.

Horror Campaign (prev. Army of Commoners)

I'm leaving the original post up in spoilers, cause it's be just silly to delete it ,but the thread's kind of no longer about what it was originally about. Now it's a bunch of updates about my groups halloween campaign, so, yeah, you don't need to advise on how to beat the kythons, we came through it with heavy losses, but survived.

Spoiler

Show

...A.K.A. "Kython Storm".

So, my group is playing a month long campaign intended to climax around halloween. Naturally, this campaign is heavy on the horror side of things. I won't ramble on about the main story-arch or the sub-archs we're currently smack dab in the middle of (at risk of turning this intoa 5 page thread).
But we're currently a 6 person group of level 6 characters, and we're currently in deep dragon doodoo.

We're on a large island/small continent which, aside from a noteable degree of isolation, is more or less like the nearby mainland. A little lighter on supplies and certainly no major cities or kingdoms, but not a bumpkin-ville. it's also been under a massive undead plague for a few weeks, of which we've been a part of.
The undead are all mindless. Anyone who dies rises as some kind of undead creature, usually a zombie. The long dead are returning as skeletons and low-level homebrew ghost creatures (partially incorporeal, creepy suckers anyway). And it's not just humanoids, animals and even insects are simply not staying dead here.
We were hell bent on figuring out why. We're starting to wonder if it'll be a better plan to just turn tail and try to convince some paladin organizations to rake over the place with holy rath.

Except there's a few stubborn villages who simply refuse to give up their ancestral lands/homes. We're currently in one of those villages, which has managed to set up a few concentric rings of walls and trenches that keeps them relatively safe for a decent length of time.
Enter problem two. There's a nest of Kythons that lived deep deep in a cave system, who mostly kept to slaughtering things under ground. The plague has affected them too, and while the kythons have been more successful at keeping their undead numbers down (mostly through brutal claw to claw shredding), the whole thing has them riled up enough that they've broken from their natural insitinctual cycles, and have come to the surface. They're moving across the island in a wave of carnage.

For anyone who doesn't know what a kython is: They're from the book of vile darkness, and the fastest way to sum them up is that they're D&D "Aliens" (as in, chestburster, facehugger, queen alien aliens). They aren't LITERALLY aliens, they're more of a demon/aberration, but that's more or less how to sum it up fast.

The Situation
We're in a village of a about 7 dozen people. We're surrounded by undead humanoids, monstrous humanoids, and animals. They're mooks, we could wipe them out with some patience and a good battle strategy, but there's a bigger problem on the horizon. Our scrying and divinations have let us know that we've got about one week, give or take a day, to get ready for a wave of kythons to attack the town in an orgy of blood and fury.
There's a LOT of them. A LOT of juveniles, a good number of broodlings and adults, and a single slaymaster (you have to know about the kythons for that to make sense). Worse, anything we kill will get up and fight us again, though probably weaker. WORSE WORSE, anything THEY kill will get up and fight us.

I think our DM wanted us to quest for something to help us protect the town, but we threw a curveball at him, and suggested
Us: "What if we taught the village how to fight?"
DM: "In a week?"
Us: "Better than nothing."

In our games, 6th level means you're a downright famous member of your chosen class. Maybe not a world-shatterer, but a 6th level cleric is almost definately someone other clerics have heard of. A 6th level wizard is a respectable and admired arcanist. ect.
Since we're considered "downright incredible" by 99% of the worlds population (99% of the worlds population being 1rst level NPC classes), and since our DM liked our suggestion so much, he's letting us go for it. We get to transform the NPCs into ready adventurers. The solid week of hands-on training will give them a (one-time only) jump to second level, and they loose their NPC classes, gaining real base classes instead.

The Army
Our group is: Wizard, Archivist, Cleric, Rogue, Paladin, and a Dragon Shaman (very relevant of course).
Our DM has agreed that, between the 6 of us, we know just enough to START anyone down any path they (we) choose. If someone wanted to become a spellthief, our wizard and rogue would know enough to turn them into one. If someone wanted to be a binder, our archivist would be able to tell them how to start looking into it. ect. So our options are "anything", and we've got a crapload of books.
Not everyone can fight of course. Relevant numbers:
29 males which we can count actually truly count on in a war (which is what this really is) with alightly above average stats from a life of farming and rough-housing (physically 10-13s with a few peaking at 14, the DM will give us exact numbers at our next session). Mentally a little less stellar, but we can still expect a few to peak up at 13 or 14.
11 women who are hard-headed enough to join us on the battlefield and not freak out (our DM isn't sexist, this is just a slice of ye-olde-village life where not all of the women are ready to stab a zombie in the face untill they're cornered. Please please please don't turn this into a sexism-in-gaming thread, that's not going on, promise). One of the 11 women is a schoolmarm with 16 INT and some pre-cursory training with a rapier (gets proficiency and weapon focus with it as free feats, regardless of what classes we give her). She also has a +1 rapier that's been in her family for a long time, which is relevant because we're looking at mostly simple weapons and farming implements here. She won't let anyone else use the rapier though, unless it's an immediate situation where a weapon is needed.
7 teens (5 male, 2 female) who aren't as physically able as the adults yet, but are still ready to fight. They're also collectivelly furious at the situation and ready to go down swinging, all of them.

Location
There's more people in the village, but they're either unwilling, or unable, to really fight with us. The elderly, the timid, ect. We've also established that at least another dozen of the women and a few more men will be willing to shoot arrows from the rooftops of barricaded buildings, but won't be willing to go into battle head on, and they'll retreat inside at the first sign of the rooftops being overrun by kythons (inevitable if they're too effective).
The kythons will have trouble getting through some of the current defenses, and we have a week to make fortifications, simple traps, and anything else we can think of. If they can't overrun us all at once, they'll wind up attacking in waves, which will give us a chance to re-group and prepare for the next wave. And deal with any zombies in the town
We've got a full map, but it's all pretty basic. Mostly one level buildings made of wood, a few second story buildings, we're going to use the schoolhouse as a base of operations (sturdy as heck, two levels, decent size) and the non-combatants will be inside when the carnage starts. We'll also try to persuade the DM to let us turn a few of the elderly into some kind of healers. That'll give us a chance to get our wounded patched up in between waves without wasting our resources.

Our DM isn't afraid of telling us "You could have saved these people, but failed". We don't know if this is even possible, or if we're in a hopless situation. Our DM isn't the Devil, but he's not going to baby us, especially during a horror campaign.

The Gear
We each have a good collection of 'junk' gear like (scrolls, piddly wands, trap making material, potions ect), a few decents weapon, some armor, ect. Our wizard can craft wands, and both him and the archivist can make scrolls. Past that, we're basically SOL.
Our DM will give us some leeway on what we can find laying around the village (if we go looking for a scythe, we'll probably find a farming implement that'll work for it, ect). We can also expect to be able to improvise some weaker armor and shields out of stuff that's in the town, and there are some real weapons and armor stuff around.
While it's not literally gear, there's also the fact that our wizard knows Arcane Lock as a spell, and can spend the week giving a few strategic locations a +10 DC to be busted down by kythons. The basement to the school (one door only, no way out) will certainly have an arcane lock, plus mundane fortifications, for if the survivors have to fall back inside of it.

But ultimately? I have no freaking clue what to do, and neither does our group. We all have some notes taken down about kythons (or DM is the only one with a book of vile darkness), stuff our Archivist 'told' us with some knowledge checks. I just keep thinking of our DMs reply when our wizard asked how many were coming. "Lots."

We've thought, if worse came to worse, we could try to barricade the survivors in the basement of the school, with some heavy heavy duty physical supplies, and try to run our hides out of there to bring in help... but where we could find help on this island, wether or not the barricades would hold for the undetermined amount of time it could take us, and the downright GRUUSOME possibility that we might not realistically make it back in at all... Not a pretty option.

So.... any suggestions? Any advice, out of the box solutions, sound battle plans, and suicidally insane backup plans are welcome. Downright game-breaking cheese isn't really what we're looking for here, but even that we'll take into consideration at this point. If it's a one time deal to shine like rockstars, our DM will probably let us slide on it.

****
EDIT
****

Forgot to mention. Our next session is tuesday night, and it'll be a long one. We'll have a few hours to hammer out the details of our army and our flash-forward weeks worth of fortification and training, while we sit around watching TV, playing video games, snacking, ect.
After we (the group) feel we're ready, the DM will put on his evil smile and the carnage will begin.

Re: Build An Army of Commoners

Your DM wants you to flee. I won't tell you all a Slaymaster can do, but it's CR 11, and a single Kython adult is CR 5. With next to no weaponry, only up to level 3 spells, you're SOL. Your best option if to get the Kythons and Undead to fight each other. They Kython's should be able to take care of a fair number of Undead, and the Undead should be able to take care of a good number of Kython's. This will reduce the numbers greatly, and you'll only have to fight one force of considerably weaker forces, which is a good thing.

Kython's are intelligent, after all, so they'll probably figure the undead are the bigger threat (Slaughterkings are drastically more intelligent than Humans).

My definative recommendation - Let them kill each other. You will die, unless the DM is very nice to you. Perhaps get all the villagers very good at Hiding and let the town get decimated in the Kython/Undead battle. Once they're done with each other, spring up and kill the weakened forces.

The other option is to craft a whole lot of Wands of Fireball, and nuke the undead forces - Kythons are demonbred, so most likely resistant if not immune to Fire, though. Rely on Scouts (Complete Adventurer) to deliver Hit and Run tactics to the Kythons, and they should eventually be killed. It woud take a while, though...

Best tactic I see is fleeing, or letting the armies weaken each other first.

If there's a rule, there's someone out there trying to figure out how to get around it just to piss off his DM.

Re: Build An Army of Commoners

I'd suggest:
1. Have an escape route for the people. Even if it's just a ladder to climb off of a building, it's better than being trapped in a cellar. Unless these xenomorphs can climb walls . Anyway, try to bring some of the noncombatants along, if you can. A few crying children should melt the heart of any real paladin.
2. Make lots of villagers into improvised clerics, if you can. Turn undead and protection from evil can really help against massive waves of zombies.
3. Try and force the kytons to fight their undead ex-chums, if you can. If you can do this, It'll drastically weaken the forces of both sides.

Generic Expendable Grunt of the Society for Hobgoblin Equality in Level Adjustment (SHELA)

Re: Build An Army of Commoners

I'm not sure if nuking them with fireballs is that great of an idea. The kytons are, in all likelihood, much stronger than the undead. Try to get the slaymaster surrounded by undead, if at all possible. Don't know if it'll work at all, but tanglefoot bags +web spell might help.

Generic Expendable Grunt of the Society for Hobgoblin Equality in Level Adjustment (SHELA)

Re: Build An Army of Commoners

As I said, this scenario is Alien II. The commando's battle, they brutally reduce the aliens, but in the end, only Ripley and Bishop survive. I REALLY recommend you lure the foes to battle each other, and also, ask your DM if you could reduce everyone's level by 1 to get one antilife shell. If it lasts long enough, you'll be able to kill the Kythons when there are very little of them, and next to no zombies. Else, prepare an escape route, 'cause you're going down.

Re: Build An Army of Commoners

Originally Posted by Iamdead7

You are all screwed.

Yes, yes we are.

Originally Posted by Drider

Bards shine when you have this many people

Yeah, we've touched on that. We have a dragon shaman, who gives a bonus to everyone within 30 feet. We're going to have him keep the "Senses" aura running (a class based bonus to initiative, currently +2 for him) at the start of the battle to tip the initiative rolls in our favor, and then have him switch to damage reduction. If things start looking grim, the fast healing (which only works up to half your hitpoint total) aura goes up.

A marshal or two in the army might be good. If we have a villager or two with 14 CHA, a +2 bonus to something and a +1 bonus to something else (for the class) wouldn't be a bad way to go. Bard falls into the same category of course.

Originally Posted by Azerian Kelimon

Second, d'you have summon spells? They'll be vital in battle.

I think our wizard knows some actually, but i don't have his spell list. I'll bring it up.

Originally Posted by Azerian Kelimon

Third, if you wanna get some use from the person with high INT and a +1 rapier, I THINK warmage used INT. If it doesn't, search for a batsorc like class, rapido!

Actually, we're talking about making her a swashbuckler. I think our DM figured we'd try to make her a wizard or something like that, but a 2nd level wizard isn't going to be a whole lot of good for us. She'll run out of spells real fast, only have 1st level spells, and why be excited about 16 INT if all it means is a bonus to some save DCs for spells we can barely use?
Wizard makes sense for a player character, but in this one-time situation? If she's a swashbuckler, she can finesse her weapon, add her int to damage, and have some bonus AC

Originally Posted by Azerian Kelimon

Fourth,, if you can cast "greater/normal magic weapon", now is the time to use it and give a few super arrows to the archers.

We can cast that for sure, but certainly not enough times to give it to many people.

Originally Posted by Azerian Kelimon

This ISN'T going to end well.

PS: Actually, it might end well. Find a way to guide the zombhus against the Kythons. Weaker Kythons and less zombies is good.

We've talked about that. We can't come up with a good way to make them fight. The kythons will likely shred them if they get in the way, the ONLY good thing might be kythons clearing out undead so we don't have to.

Luckily, zombies = undead, and kythons = abberations. So our Archivist will be able to get us some handy bonuses against both of them with dark knowledge checks.

Re: Build An Army of Commoners

Train them as rogue 1 (skillz)/warlocks with eldritch spear, and preferably with initiative boosting feats, and probably weapon focus as well. You can then find a narrow pass, and pull a '300' on mooks and kythons - use concentrated sneak-attacking eldritch blasts at 200ft to keep the enemy at arm's length, and just keep firing. A bard 1/marshal 1 along with a marshal 2 with the steady hand (+1 to ranged) and motivate dexterity (+cha to dexterity based checks, including initiative) auras will also do wonders for your cause, as you can boost your attack rolls quite a bit.

Re: Build An Army of Commoners

There's actually a good way to get zombies and kythons to fight. Train someone to be a barb (I think they get slightly faster movement at level 1/2), get them to make the zombies follow them, make it so Kythons arrive and find zombies in front of them, and watch the fireworks. Also, seriously consider the antilife shell idea. It's more or less the only way you can escape if things get sticky.

Re: Build An Army of Commoners

Figured something better out - There are 2 Spells that wll prove invaluable in this -

Hide from Undead - Cleric 1 - Becomes for ALL purposes undetectable by undead. Best part is, Mindless undead don't even get a save. You can't attack the undead, or cast spells at them, or anything like that, but they won't even notice you. Duration is 10 min/level, and it effects 1 person/level with each casting. If the undead show up before the Kythons, you'll just have to continuously cast this through a wand, until they show up, then hide from the Kythons and watch the Undead and Kython fight. Alternatively, cast it on some fast people, who bait the Kythons into running right into the Undead ranks. They can jsut run in between the undead, and the undead will form a protective wall so they can flee back to town.

Command Undead - Sorc/Wizard 2 - Short range, LONG duration (1 day/level.). Allows you to command the undead to fight for you. Again, no save for Mindless undead, so you can have the undead attack the Kythons and later have them commit suicide (the spell strictly states they will do so). Make your enemies your allies - Just make sure you have wands of this on hand too, to possess the Stronger Kython zombies when they die.

In other words - Make them all Clerics and Wizards, if they have even 12 Wis/Cha. The others can be Rogues with Max ranks in UMD, or other things that can shoot from a distance and run like crazy. This will not be won with the villagers in melee.

If there's a rule, there's someone out there trying to figure out how to get around it just to piss off his DM.

Re: Build An Army of Commoners

Your DM wants you to flee. I won't tell you all a Slaymaster can do, but it's CR 11, and a single Kython adult is CR 5. With next to no weaponry, only up to level 3 spells, you're SOL.

Yeah, we know the challenge ratings

The thing is, we're a 6 person group instead of 4, which gives us a little bit of an edge, and we're getting a small army of second level 'whatever we wants'. Not that a bunch of second level mooks are likely to decimate a slaymaster, but it's not 4 on 1, it's 53 on "question mark".

I don't know a ton about challenge ratings, but our DM has a habit of twisting things up or down in various directions anyway, so the chllenge rating in the book likely means less than what we can come up with.

We are still screwed, i'm just saying, we're screwed for different reasons

Originally Posted by Dullyanna

I'm not sure if nuking them with fireballs is that great of an idea.

Elemental spells aren't going to be much help against kythons. Immune to cold and acid entirely, and resistant to fire and electricity.

Re: Build An Army of Commoners

Originally Posted by Illiterate Scribe

Train them as rogue 1 (skillz)/warlocks with eldritch spear, and preferably with initiative boosting feats, and probably weapon focus as well. You can then find a narrow pass, and pull a '300' on mooks and kythons - use concentrated sneak-attacking eldritch blasts at 200ft to keep the enemy at arm's length, and just keep firing. A bard 1/marshal 1 along with a marshal 2 with the steady hand (+1 to ranged) and motivate dexterity (+cha to dexterity based checks, including initiative) auras will also do wonders for your cause, as you can boost your attack rolls quite a bit.

Goodness knows how you'll fluff this one out, though.

Sneak Attacks must be from within 30 ft.

The best bet is, as mentioned, make a Marshal or a few for the +Cha to Initiative and what not; make a few clerics too, for spontaneous healing and buffing. But, as a fail-safe, back everyone into the basement with only a single entrance and make a stand there. Ranged behind a wall of meleers; that should hopefully thin numbers down enough. Also, use AoE spells like Chain Lightning with the Wizard to anyone in the way and Magic Missile for Force Damage on any improvised Wizards. Scrolls of Chain Lightning are a good idea; or battle field control spells for minor wizards to cast.

Re: Build An Army of Commoners

I'm just worried about the future. Warlocks are infinite reuse, but the wands aren't. There are still going to be undead around after the Kythons, so you'll need long-lasting support.

Oh dear. I just realised something. Kythons are aberrations, not outsiders.

They'll get back up as undead after you kill them!

Yeah, we counted on that. But really, the undead I'm less worried about. A cleric, an archivist, and a paladin in the party (plus a dragon shaman and a wizard, and a rogue (with no sneak, but a crossbow)).
These are mook undeads. They're everywhere, but they're zombies, weak skeletons, and freaky (but weak) ghost creatures. If we stay tight, watch each others backs, heal a little, and drop a few positive-energy bombs from the cleric, we should be able to handle them. It's the villagers who need to fall back and let us tackle the walking corpses.

When the kythons rise, they're going to be rising as zombies. Zombie kythons, but zombies still. We'll spank them with the same strategy that's kept us alive so far.

It just means we've got to stay on our toes ,even in between waves of the real threat

Re: Build An Army of Commoners

Originally Posted by Ghal Marak

You could hide everybody away and then let the undead in.

It's worth a thought. It's a heavy horror campaign, so our DM would definately respect the 'Oh crap, we hide like cats under the bed' option. That said, a ticked off slaymaster is a scary wild card when you're hiding. Plus, kythons have blindsense, so we'd better be REALLY freaking hiding.

Also, I didn't mention this in the thread ,but it's become relevant. It's winter. And snowy. Undead won't leave the same tracks as living (shambling tends to be different from stepping).
We might still be able to hide, but this is D&D. Where rangers can tell what you had for breakfast three weeks ago by the pattern of your footprints on smooth rock, if they're good enough.

Re: Build An Army of Commoners

Originally Posted by Illiterate Scribe

and pull a '300'

Actually, that might not be a bad idea anyway. We have a week to prepare, and a whole heap of village crap. Wagons, boxes, loose firewood, whatever we can scrounge up. We can choke off sections of the town under heaps of random to make it difficult terrain, and create custom bottlenecks. They'll be able to get over most of our barricades, but they'll be slowed and at a disadvantage through it, so we can focus primarily on the ones at the front of the bottlenecks and pick off stragglers through the rubble....

Re: Build An Army of Commoners

I would suggest turning several of them into neutral clerics of Wee Jas, the neutral goddess who has no problem with raising the dead as long as you're not all evil about it. In the weke before the big fight, have them go out and use liberal rebukes to round up as many undead as possible. Zombies and skeletons can be rebuked with pretty good regularity at level 1, each cleric will have 4-5 rebukes per day, and they will follow and obey the cleric who rebuked them until they die (again).

You are going to use these undead as meat shields against the aliens.

Whoever isn't a cleric should be rogue archers or slingers on the rooftops/walls with a sprinkling here and there of marshals, bards, or dragon speakers. I prefer bards, myself.

Your clerics probably won't be able to rebuke the aliens when they die (too high HD, I'm assuming), so use them to rebuke any villagers who get the axe into fighting on your side, and send them into the melee. Besides that, have them bless the archers, use inflict spells to add what damage they can, and be ready to protect the archers as much as they are able if the aliens make it up the walls.

People seemed to like this better, but only marginally so - the way one might prefer to be stabbed than shot. Optimally, one isn't stabbed or shot. Optimally, one eats some cake! But there are times when cake is not available, and instead we are destroyed. This is the deep poetry of the universe. -- Tycho Brahe

Re: Build An Army of Commoners

Never thought of using marshals + bards. Anyway, definitely focus on on killing the xenomorphs w/ranged attacks, as well as slowing them down w/spells, traps, tanglefoot bags, and undead mooks. And run from the slaymaster when it rears its head. Hopefully it'll be too distracted with massive amounts of shambling corpses to run you down and turn you all into piles of gore.

Edit: I will say, it's probably not as bad a situation as storming the tower of a reduced kobold lich .

Last edited by Dullyanna; 2007-10-07 at 07:15 PM.

Generic Expendable Grunt of the Society for Hobgoblin Equality in Level Adjustment (SHELA)

Re: Build An Army of Commoners

It's true, you can't go wrong with spike traps.

EDIT: Also, schoolmarm swashbuckler? I like how you guys think.

Last edited by dyslexicfaser; 2007-10-07 at 07:16 PM.

People seemed to like this better, but only marginally so - the way one might prefer to be stabbed than shot. Optimally, one isn't stabbed or shot. Optimally, one eats some cake! But there are times when cake is not available, and instead we are destroyed. This is the deep poetry of the universe. -- Tycho Brahe

Re: Build An Army of Commoners

Warlocks seem to be the class of choice for most of the villagers. Give them an Eldritch Spear and they will be able to take out the smaller ones before they close on you. I don't think, villagers trained in Melee Combat could hold their own. So far it looks like:

- Block all paths to the village, when not possible make them as narrow and obstructed as possible. (edit: Spiked Pits, Spears, Caltrops, whatever you can produce)
- Train the elder villagers in being clerics. Their major duties can be healing and/or turning undead.
- Train a LOT of Warlocks with the Eldritch Spear ability.
- Train a small contigent of Wizards with Battlefield Control. There must be some spells to slow them down, should they advance too far. Colour Spray could work. Or Grease. They only need to buy the Warlocks more time.
- Everyone who doesn't want or is unable to participate in this, should go to the roofs and start sniping away.
- Take ~4 of the town's strongest and give them the best fortification you have. Have them take the literal role of Meat Shield in front of the Warlock Army. Have a bit more of them than you need, so they can take turns in being healed by the Elderly.

Re: Build An Army of Commoners

D'oh, THIS is the kind of place where you NEED a high level party. It's frickin' unwinnable, and the only way I can think of winning for a high level party against similar, but high level odds, is a War Master's charge of gore and utter destruction.

Re: Build An Army of Commoners

Hmm... You have a point there. Maybe if they clear the snow before they go into hiding, but that would entirely depend on how hard it's snowing.

...maybe... dig a tunnel between the two closest buildings, have everybody go into one building, then go underground to the other. Then you just have to lure a good deal of zombies into the building and voila, a standard case of zombies break in and turn everybody present. You'd have to seal up the tunnel, but it could do the trick. Of course you'd have to widen the basement of the second one by digging, but if you’re doing that you might as well start digging an escape route out as well. I don't know what to do about the blind-sense however.

Heh, I like how you put that. However, I was thinking that it wouldn't be too hard to justify mass warlocks. Just make it be a cultural/racial quirk unique to this island that you discover as you attempt to train the commoners. I think the archivist might stumble onto it or something.

Do androids dream of electric sheep?
Thanks to Kalirush for making such an awesome avatar

Re: Build An Army of Commoners

Originally Posted by 0oo0

Heh, I like how you put that. However, I was thinking that it wouldn't be too hard to justify mass warlocks. Just make it be a cultural/racial quirk unique to this island that you discover as you attempt to train the commoners. I think the archivist might stumble onto it or something.